As we already half guessed, it has been confirmed that Australia has the world's least affordable housing, as measured by multiple of income, says a new report.
The wonderfully named '6th Annual Demographia International Housing Survery: 2010' cites Vancouver as the least affordable place in the world to buy property, where a typical house sells for 9.3 times the average annual income of the local population. Sydney comes in 2nd (9.1) followed closely by the Sunshine Coast (9.0) and the Gold Coast (8.6).
Melbourne slots in at number 7, Mandurah 14th and Perth 19th.
"Affordable" is deemed to have a median multiple of 3.0 or less, whereas scoring 5.0 or more is seen as "severely unaffordable".
Australia as a country comes in highest at 6.3. OUCH!
The U.S. market, with its downturn in prices over the past few years, has seen its affordability ratio drop to 3.2.
Australia, a relatively small country with far less urban areas than elsewhere, occupies one third of the 60 areas on the planet with "severely unaffordable" housing.
Should we be concerned about this? is this sustainable? an anomaly?
[You can download & read the FULL REPORT (pdf) here]